Implode
by sydneysages
Summary: Connie Beauchamp has a secret, one unknown to the world save for Ethan Hardy. But when she starts to ignore Grace, Sam grows suspicious; for no matter what Connie Beauchamp is, an absentee mother she is not. / Main characters: Connie, Sam, Charlie, Ethan. Two part story.
1. Doubts

**So this was meant to be a short oneshot, and it's turned into a long twoshot. The next chapter will be up whenever I've written it, but I'd appreciate it if you let me know your thoughts!**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

* * *

It's a strange thing, being a fully trained cardiothoracic consultant with a heart tumour which has a very real potential to destroy your life. For the average human – even the average non-heart specialist doctor – a heart tumour diagnosis is shocking, but you don't ever really know what you're going to experience. You don't know what's a symptom and what's not. Everything just carries on as normal. Except for the tumour, of course.

But when you know the structure and impact of the human heart better than you know almost anything else (and certainly more than you know about expressing emotion), it's a second form of trauma. When an irregular rhythm is more than just feeling a bit faint because it proves that the heart – _your_ heart – isn't working.

It's a situation where you become hyper-aware of your own morbidity, of knowing exactly how the final minutes will look and feel – and it consumes you.

A knock at the door of her office startles Connie out of the torturous cycle of the questions of what is a life worth living and when will she experience it, and she calls coolly, "come in."

Or as coolly as she can, when the undertone of her voice is a perpetual current of worry.

It's both a relief and a concern to see Charlie Fairhead enter her office; the man certainly knows her better than anybody else in the department, and he's onto her. He knows something's wrong, and she's not sure how much longer she can continue to disguise her illness. Or how much longer she wants to.

"Everything okay?" Charlie asks, his brow furrowing, closing the door behind him. "You look…tense."

Their eyes meet for a split second, and Connie's concerned that he can read her better than she can read herself.

"Er, yes, fine thank you," Connie replies dismissively, picking up the file on top of the unorganised heap on the side of her desk. It's a paperwork mountain, and she's never cared less. "What can I do for you, Charlie?"

"Are you sure?"

Something snaps inside of Connie, and it takes everything in her to pull back from the edge. She doesn't need to lose her temper with Charlie; in all honesty, it isn't worth the energy she would expend in doing so.

"I just told you that I am," she snaps, her tone weary with an undercurrent of irritation. "Why are you in my office?"

Charlie pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses a couple of buttons before approaching Connie's desk, the screen directed towards her. "In the last twelve hours, I've had ten calls from Grace, Connie," he explains, his tone infuriatingly patient. It's obvious why all patients share their secrets with him, Connie realises. "She says that you haven't been answering her calls, and you've turned your read receipts off so she can't tell if you've received her messages."

He pauses, expectant, and Connie purses her lips. Of course this would be about Grace. It always is, isn't it?

"Yes, well, I've been busy…"

"Too busy to speak to your own daughter?" Charlie retorts, shaking his head. "Connie, you can keep your secret, whatever it is, but you can't lie to me about Grace. I've been here through it all, remember?"

She counts to ten before she responds. "In case you haven't noticed, we've been a little busier than normal – with fewer staff," she reminds him, her tone curt. "Grace has Sam. She doesn't need me. And I certainly don't have time to listen to why she wishes that she could move back here, Charlie. Now if that's everything, I really need to get on with some paperwork…"

It's clear that Charlie bites his lip to stop his first attempt at a response, though she looks away, ostensibly towards the stack of paperwork.

"You cannot seriously sit there and expect me to accept an answer that says you don't care about Grace," Charlie snaps, his voice raised. "I have seen you through _three years_ of ups and downs with her. I've seen her leave and what that did to you. I saw her come back, and I remember when you were almost buried alive. Not to mention the crash and the court case and everything which followed. So don't make me out to be a fool, Connie, or try and fob me off with some rubbish about the department being busy."

If this is the restrained version, Connie wonders idly what his initial response would have been.

Heaving a sigh, Connie reaches for her water – the only thing she's allowed to drink nowadays – and takes a long sip as she contemplates what to say. How to word it, whatever it is that she wants to say.

"It's complicated," she admits, finally looking at Charlie once again. "And, no, I don't want to tell you what's wrong. But it's far simpler to leave Grace out of it. So if I have to pretend to be an absentee mother – well, that's better than hurting her. Sam certainly thinks that I'm one anyway, so I'm sure he's delighted with how things are developing." She can't resist the small, sad smile which forms on her lips, but she can just about stop the tears from forming. Just.

Charlie's expression changes to become one of sympathy, of understanding. Sympathetic though, not empathetic. As, for no matter how well he thinks he knows Connie Beauchamp and her parenting struggles, he truly has no idea.

"No matter what happens, I can assure you that, in ten years' time, Grace won't remember why you left her alone," Charlie reminds her, his tone far more sympathetic than she deserves. "But she _will_ remember that you left her, that you abandoned your plans. So just keep that in mind when you plan your next act of altruism, and give the little girl who is desperate to speak to her mother a chance."

Blinking once, then twice, Connie nods curtly. "I'll bear that in mind," she promises, surreptitiously crossing her fingers underneath the file. It's one of Grace's childish mannerisms that she's adopted, and the action hurts her heart more than cancer ever could. "Now, if that's everything, I really think you should get back out there…"

He doesn't reply as he walks out, but Charlie's eyes meet hers fleetingly on his way out, and she has a sneaking suspicion that he knows more about her than he's letting on…

* * *

~x~

The next morning before work, Connie makes a spur of the moment decision.

She stops at the local shops nearest to the hospital and, parking as close as she can, heads into the 3 shop.

"Good morning," she begins brusquely, avoiding eye contact with the member of staff nearest the door. "I'd like to change my mobile number, please…"

As the assistant explains the process to her, Connie's attention is on the call history on display on her phone screen. Forty missed calls, last night alone, all from Grace. Part of her is surprised that her daughter hasn't tried to use Sam's phone, in the hope that she would be tricked into answering. Or maybe Sam's already five steps ahead of her – for once, they're on the same page.

Not that he knows that of course.

"Is there any particular reason you need to change your number, Mrs Beauchamp?"

Connie's attention is dragged back to the present, and with it, her heart.

Subconsciously pressing a hand to her chest, she shrugs. "Nothing in particular," she replies, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "A need for a fresh start, I suppose."

A world where her daughter doesn't want her would be ideal right now.

* * *

~x~

"Hello, Mrs Beauchamp," Noel calls from the reception as she enters the department. "Did you have a nice evening?"

"Fine, thanks," Connie replies drily, tightening her coat around her. This department's far too cold; she needs to have another word with estates to see if she can get the heating turned up.

"There've been a couple of phone calls for you," Noel continues, almost as if he hasn't heard her response. "Couple from Mr Hanssen's office, and Grace rang, said she can't get through to you on your mobile. So I tried to ring you and it said that it had been disconnected…?"

"Yes, I changed numbers," Connie replies distractedly, her brain moving as swiftly as possible from Grace towards Henrik. What could he want to talk to her about?

"Oh, if you pass me it, I'll update it on the system," Noel says, his tone far cheerier than the situation calls for. "And if she rings back, should I pass it onto Grace?"

An almost debilitating rush of fear courses through Connie's veins, and she almost spits out, "no, don't. I'll give it to her myself." Picking up a piece of paper from the reception desk, she continues, "I'm on an admin day today. _Do not_ disturb me under any circumstances."

* * *

~x~

"Dad, I don't understand…" There're tears in Grace's eyes as she makes eye contact with Sam, her phone gripped tightly in her hand. " _Why_ won't she answer me?"

Sam has a theory, but it's certainly not one that he's going to share with his daughter. "I don't know, sweetheart," he replies gently, reaching out to remove the phone from Grace's hand. "I really don't. I think that it's really busy across there, and obviously the NHS isn't very well staffed. Maybe she's just been at work all day?"

"No!" Grace declares, her sadness visibly turning to anger. "No, she always answers me. I think something's wrong, Dad. Because…why doesn't she want to talk to me?"

"It's alright, darling," Sam murmurs, wrapping his arms around Grace's back. The anger's dissipated back to sadness, a pattern which reminds him of the first time that his daughter moved in with him – only that time, he hadn't stolen her away. "Just try and relax, okay? I promise I'll try and get to the bottom of it, but you really do need to go to bed."

"I don't want to until I've spoken to Mum," Grace insists, her voice barely audible through the tears.

"It's the middle of the night in England," he reminds her, gently but firmly. "She isn't going to ring you back until tomorrow at the earliest. So can we please go to bed?"

It takes another ten minutes, but somehow Sam manages to get Grace to go to bed, and he's left in the living room alone with his thoughts. Well, his thoughts, a large sheaf of paperwork and a slightly larger than large malt whisky, and the problem of what Connie Beauchamp is doing.

She has a game, he's sure of it. It's deliberate to go from constant contact with Grace – and fighting a court case to try and regain custody – to the occasional text, to then absolutely nothing. She cut the legal action, too, without even a word; that was the first trigger that something deeper was at play. He can't fathom what she would do, what she could be capable of, and that worries him slightly. Because, no matter how twisted her games have been, he's always been one step ahead of her – because for everything he tries to claim about having the moral high ground, he's far shadier and more underhand than even _she_ could ever be.

On the spur of the moment, Sam sets the pile of paperwork to the side and grabs his laptop. For some unknown reason, his registration information at Holby City Hospital hasn't been deleted, meaning that he's still able to access the rota information for the Emergency Department. Actually, every department – as apparently he hasn't been replaced as Medical Director. Unsurprising, given the manner in which he quit, and incredibly useful for when he wants to stalk his ex-lover.

For all his rhetoric of togetherness and _we could be a family together_ , his feelings for Connie Beauchamp are the most complicated part of his life. Hatred is followed by irritation, which is followed by lust, and then finally, the scariest part of the circle: the idea that, should they make one iota of effort, they could be a family. That they could be the strongest couple in the world – if they only gave the idea of being happy a shot for ten seconds.

And then she turns away, scarred by some emotional trauma that probably happened ten or twenty years ago and she hasn't sought help for, and he gets bored. Well, not bored per se – frustrated is probably more accurate. So he gives her space until she initiates some form of contact, and the whole cycle continues again.

Within seconds, he's logged onto the ED's rota, and sees that Connie's off. Though that's not a surprise, given it's two in the morning in England, he has noticed that she's working much fewer hours than normal – something which is feeding his suspicions that she's planning something to do with Grace.

Someone who could be of use _is_ working, however. Charlie Fairhead – the closest thing to Elliott Hope that Connie has in the Emergency Department. Nowhere near as good, of course, but Connie's certainly unable to be a beggar in the team she's created herself.

Impulsively, Sam dials Charlie's once-familiar number and waits for the all-too familiar sound of an international call dial tone, before a wary, tired voice answers. "Hello?"

Sitting forwards, Sam clears his throat before he speaks. "Hi, Charlie? It's Sam Strachan here…yeah, sorry for the late call – you are at work, aren't you?"

"Yes," Charlie begins cautiously. "Look, if this is about Grace ringing, I passed onto Connie that she had rang."

Sam frowns, but decides to tactically ignore this. Clearly his daughter wants to speak to Connie more than he had previously thought.

"No it's not about that, Charlie…well, it sort of is, but not that exactly," Sam replies, rambling a little. "She isn't answering any of Grace's calls – or mine. Not that that's a surprise on my part, but it _is_ a worry. I do care about her, Charlie, no matter what she thinks."

"I know," Charlie confirms, sounding marginally more awake. "There's something wrong, Sam, I've been meaning to ring you for a while, but you know how it is…She won't tell me, or anyone to be honest. The only person who knows is Ethan, and he's keeping her secret as tightly as she is, though it's clear that he isn't happy about it."

Something tugs inside Sam's chest, but he ignores it. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't know."

Slightly frustrated, Sam counts to five before replying. It wouldn't do to alienate Charlie now, after all. "An educated guess then?"

"Honestly, Sam, I haven't got a clue," Charlie replies, his tone suggesting that he's aware of Sam's frustrations. "Thirty years plus of medicine hasn't made me a doctor, after all. But she's definitely ill. I just don't know how – or if she's even getting treatment. If she is, it isn't on the NHS…"

Sam snorts. "No, Connie certainly wouldn't," he confirms, thinking back to the one time that he could remember Connie being ill in the time before. Before everything got even more complicated than it already was. "Wouldn't want any of you to be able to access her notes, anyway. Do you think it's likely that you could get her to answer the phone to me?"

"That's about as likely as she is to tell me what's wrong," Charlie replies, almost immediately. "She's still hurt about what you did, Sam. One minute you were on the verge of becoming a family again, and then you're gone – with Grace, too."

"You heard about that, then?" _Shit_ , Sam thinks. Maybe Charlie's less likely to help him than he had banked on.

Charlie laughs. "Anyone who knows Connie in the slightest knew that she was hurt that you left," he explains, his tone gentle. "If you forgive an old man his analogy, it was as if she was a teenage girl who had just drawn both of your initials in a heart."

"Right…"

"And then when you left, she ripped it up, burned it, and then burned the ashes." Charlie's tone almost becomes a warning. "So tread carefully, Sam. I don't think that she's up for a fight, honestly."

"Okay," Sam says. "Thank you, Charlie. Honestly, I really appreciate it. If you could avoid letting her know that I've rang, that'd be great…but I think I'll be seeing you soon."

This time, Charlie's words are intended as a warning. "Don't try and make things any worse just to get one up with Grace, Sam. I can assure you, you would live to regret it." He doesn't say anything else, simply hangs up the call, leaving Sam pondering the information that he's just learned.

Connie's ill. It could be anything with her – even something as stupid as a secret pregnancy. _His_ baby. How poetically unjust would that be, for him to have left with their first child, just for her to have their second?

But surely that's unlikely. She would have to be, what, five months pregnant now? That wouldn't be something that even Connie could hide, slight as she is.

No, it's more likely to be something serious. Something that's got Connie giving up.

Or maybe it's a ruse to trick the team into thinking that she's quitting when, actually, she's going to come and steal Grace.

He has no idea. Connie Beauchamp has always been an enigma, and that hasn't changed now. But he knows what he has to do now.

He has to go back.

* * *

~x~

It's been three days, and there's not been a single attempt from Grace to try and contact Connie.

Under any normal circumstances, this would be devastating for Connie. But for this strange, painful, confusing situation that she's in, it's a good thing. She doesn't have to try and lie to her daughter – and she doesn't have to pretend to have missed the calls.

She's finally achieved the distance that, perhaps, would have been better to have had from the beginning. If she hadn't fought for her in those early days, it would certainly have been easier to have severed the contact now, wouldn't it?

"Morning, Mrs Beauchamp," Ethan says cordially, as she approaches the workstation nearest to her office. "You really shouldn't be here," he reminds her gently.

"I'm fine," she replies distractedly, tucking her phone into her pocket. "I'm on cubicles, Ethan. It's hardly heart surgery."

"You know the risk of infection is too high," he urges her, his voice dropping in volume as some of the night staff approach. "At least stay in your office if you're too stubborn to go home."

Somewhere inside, Connie knows that she needs to quash Ethan's caring side, but she can't quite bring herself to get rid of the one person in her life who talks the sense she needs to hear.

"Yes, well, perhaps after lunch," she replies flatly, picking up a file from the desk. "But for now, I'll go and do my job. Unless you want to make it public why you're challenging me, that is…"

"I won't do that," he promises. "You know I won't. But when you've got chemo again next week, Connie, you can't pick up any illnesses…it could be catastrophic."

An unwelcome image flashes through her mind: Sam, all those years ago, in ITU.

"Catastrophic," she repeats, a small, wry smile on her lips. "Doctor Hardy, you do so have a way with words. Perhaps a literary career, if you ever lose your interest in medicine?"

* * *

~x~

It takes him a week to organise things enough for him to get back to the UK – work, it seems, aren't a fan of letting their Head of Department go on an extended leave of absence, especially when they've just returned. Grace's school aren't impressed either, though the mention of an ill parent has them ultimately supporting his decision.

He also can't rush them off back to England for the simple reason that he doesn't want to worry Grace. He's told her some rubbish about Connie being unable to answer the phone due to crazy shifts – crazier than normal, he's stressed, crazy enough that she doesn't even have time to sleep let alone do anything else. It's probably a bad idea, but at least it'll prepare Grace for seeing Connie looking ill. If she really is ill, that is.

"So does Mum know that we're coming?" Grace asks, her tone excited as they disembark from the plane at Holby Airport. "Or is it a surprise, like when we went back to America?"

Her comment startles Sam, and makes him question how totally his daughter believes that Connie wanted to surprise her with a secret move back to New York.

"She doesn't know," he admits, tightening his grip on his laptop case. "And we're not going to see her straight away. We can't startle her – not when she's been working this much, after all."

"Oh, okay," Grace says, her tone dropping. "So I guess we're not staying with her, either?"

"Nope," Sam confirms. "Or maybe we will. But not for the first few days. Then we can reassess the situation."

It takes almost two hours to get through customs and security, and then pick up a hire car from the airport, and then a further hour to drive back to the hospital. They have to take the longer route because, as Sam remembers almost too late, the shorter route involves going near the cliff which Connie's car flew over all those months ago. But, finally, after a brief pit stop at their hotel to drop off Grace's ridiculous number of bags, they make their way to the Emergency Department of Holby City Hospital.

"Now, do you remember what we've agreed, Gracie?" Sam asks sternly.

"Yes," she huffs.

"What is it?"

"That I won't run off and try and find Mum, that I'll stay with you, and if you tell me to go with Charlie, I will and I won't complain," Grace replies, rolling her eyes. "I still think it's totally ridiculous."

"Think that," Sam says, a touch of humour in his tone. "Just don't act on it."

With a deep breath, he gets out of the car and crosses the road with Grace, approaching the department with trepidation. He won't be greeted with kindness or even neutrality; there's a culture which is entirely against Sam Strachan in here, from the sound of what Charlie said.

He bypasses reception and heads straight for the nurse manager's office in the hope that Charlie will be there. He's lucky.

"Sam…" Charlie says slowly, making eye contact with the younger man as he enters the office. "What…what are you doing here?"

With an overstated glance at Grace, Sam smiles and replies, "just came back to visit Connie, didn't we, Grace?"

"Yeah, we wanted to see Mum!" Grace replies. "But Dad said I have to wait with you until he's spoken to her. Which is _super_ annoying. How are you, Charlie?"

There's a semi-amused expression on Charlie's face as he makes eye contact with Grace. "I'm good thanks, Grace," he replies. "Can I get you to stay in here with Duffy while me and your Dad have a quick conversation outside?"

"You can tell me all about New York," Duffy interjects immediately, not allowing Grace to protest. "I've always wanted to go – is Central Park as nice as they say?"

Surreptitiously, Sam and Charlie slip out of the office and close the door behind them.

"You brought her with you?" Charlie hisses, his tone conveying his anger. "You need to have a frank conversation with Connie, Sam. Bringing Grace isn't going to let that happen."

"What could I have done?" Sam hisses back, running a hand through his hair. "If she really is ill – and I say if, as this could all be a game – then Grace needs to see her again. You know that better than anyone."

"So what's your plan?" Charlie asks coolly. "Burst into her office and demand that she tells you what's wrong?"

"Er, I hadn't got that far," Sam admits. "But that sounds like a start. Except for one small issue…" He grits his teeth, his eyes flitting across the department.

"And that is?"

"Her office is open," Sam explains, pointing to the open door. "And she isn't in there. Any idea where she could be?"

Charlie frowns. "She said she was on paperwork this afternoon," he replies, confusion evident in his tone. "Look, I'm not impressed with how you've just turned up. But if you give me two minutes, I'll get her new number and you can ring her and sort this out once and for all."

"Thanks, Charlie. I owe you."

"I'm doing it for her and Grace," Charlie replies darkly. "Not you."

Sam suddenly wonders if anyone would ever believe the fact that he cares about Connie Beauchamp more than them all put together.

* * *

~x~

It's like a nightmare. Maybe it is a nightmare – maybe she's passed out somewhere and this is the way that the cancer is trying to hurt her now.

But as she looks up from the stack of paperwork, she catches sight of a familiar face, one that she hadn't expected to see again – at least not in Holby City Hospital.

Sam Strachan.

And if Sam's here, then it's likely that Grace isn't far behind.

Grabbing her phone, Connie panics and stands up, rushing out of the office. This is the first place he'll look for her – if he wants to find her, that is. She needs to go somewhere and think, somewhere he won't come for her.

Irrationally, the first place she thinks of is the female toilets.

She bypasses the ones closest to her office, simply because they're the busier ones. Instead, she heads to the rarely used ones in the Major Incident Overflow area of the department, the one that is a warren of white sheets and empty spaces where beds used to be until they had to pull them into the corridors to deal with the patient overflow which comes with every NHS cut. These toilets aren't frequented, even by the cleaners, and there's a layer of dust over the mirrors, distorting her reflection.

Surely she's imagining this. She has to be. Sam Strachan can't be back here, not without any warning.

Then again, she thinks wryly, that's his forte. Whenever he appears (or disappears), he doesn't give warning. He just appears. Or goes.

Why now, though, she thinks. She's ill. He couldn't have chosen a worse time to appear – because, for all his flaws, he's a remarkably competent doctor. And more than that, he's a cardiothoracic surgeon; he'll be able to connect the dots between her symptoms with ease. Whilst he won't get cancer – even he isn't that good – he'll certainly be able to tell that there's something wrong with her circulatory system.

Dependent how good he's become, maybe he'll even be able to pinpoint it.

Of course he had to come now, she thinks bitterly. He had to come and try and save the day, or whatever it is that he's here for. Maybe he's here because he's stopped running from the prospect of them being a family. That's how he's always worked; he proposes the idea of a family, of being a unit, and then he realises that he isn't ready for it, that he isn't willing to make any form of change to make their relationship work. Then he bolts until he comes to terms with it.

Last time, it took him eight years. Five months is certainly an improvement.

It's only then that she lets herself think of Grace. Grace, sweet Grace, the daughter she wanted so badly and couldn't bear to give up. The daughter she's done her best to hurt over the past few weeks, so that it would be one less person who mourned her death.

Grace, who is most likely in this hospital, who is going to see how weak her mother really is.

Interrupting her reverie, Connie's phone starts to ring. It's an unfamiliar number, and she frowns, before deciding to pick it up. She has a sneaking suspicion that she knows who it is – and, for once, she's up for the challenge.

"Hello?" Connie whispers, wrapping her left arm around her body.

"Connie?" A familiar voice says in response, his tone firm, and his voice initiates a fight or flight instinct in Connie.

This time, she chooses to fight.

"What do you want, Sam?" Connie replies, deciding to act as if she hasn't a clue that he's in her hospital. "Isn't it the middle of the night over there?"

He laughs once, then twice, and she can tell that he's trying to make his voice less harsh when he replies, "you know perfectly well that I'm in your department, Connie. So let's cut the bull and tell me where you are."

Connie snorts. "And why exactly would I do that, Sam, when you're clearly here for a fight?" Taking a deep breath, she leans over the sink slightly, using its mass to keep her balance. Arguing's taking more of a toll than she thought it would. "Just leave, and we'll pretend that none of this ever happened. That _we_ never happened."

There's shocked silence. "Why on earth would we want to do that?" Sam asks, astonished. "For better or worse, Connie, we're a family of some form, and I need to talk to you."

"A family where you up and run without even a word of warning? Some family," Connie spits back. "Look, I don't have time for this. Go back, take Grace, and be a family without me. You…you clearly don't need me." It takes everything she has to force herself to say this because, no matter how much she says otherwise, she wants Sam. She needs him.

She just needs him to look after Grace more.

"I know you're ill," Sam blurts out, and Connie almost drops her phone. "I…I spoke to Charlie. And I'm not leaving until we've at least had a conversation face-to-face." His tone is firm, and Connie decides it's not worth her effort trying to fight anymore. She should save her battles for another day.

"Fine," she concedes, unable to hide the exhaustion from her voice. "But…I'll talk to you. Not Grace. Keep her away. Please." Her voice becomes a beg, and she has to breathe deeply to stop herself crying.

"Just me," Sam promises, his tone gentle. Gentler than he's used with her for years, at any rate. It's a voice he'd use with Grace, or at least someone he cares about. "I promise. I don't want to hurt her, but I don't want to hurt you either."

"Should have thought about that before you ran off," Connie retorts, unable to stop herself. She hiccups, which turns into a half-sob. "I'll…I'll meet you in the gardens outside the Wyvern Wing. Ten minutes."

Before Sam can reply, she hangs up and sets her phone down on the sink. She has ten minutes to pull herself together, to be the strongest, baddest Connie Beauchamp the world has ever seen.

A Connie Beauchamp who doesn't need Sam Strachan, no matter how far that might be from the truth.

* * *

~x~

It's with trepidation that Connie approaches the gardens outside the main part of the hospital, her coat tucked tightly around her body. For all of the issues she has with Sam Strachan, he's managed to broach her hard exterior more successfully than anyone in the fifty years she's been alive – and she's scared that he'll do the same thing again. Unfortunately, this time, he's going to be faced with a prospect that he's never had before: a Connie Beauchamp who can't build herself back up.

He isn't here, thankfully, as she begins to slowly pace the strip of pavement in front of the flower patch closest to the hospital. Slowly enough that it couldn't cause her heartrate to increase, but fast enough that nobody would stop to ask if she's okay. It's a fine balance, an art that she's perfected – how to look okay when you're really, really not.

"Connie." His voice almost startles her, and it takes a split second to place who it is. Sam. He really is here. It wasn't a dream – or a nightmare. He's here, and he's real, far more real than a distant voice on the end of a phone could ever be.

"Sam," she retorts coolly, summoning up all of the strength she possibly can in preparation for this war of words. "Nice to see that you're capable of turning up as suddenly as you can disappear."

She turns to face him, noting how her words don't even trigger a reaction on his face. Clearly, she's become predictable.

"What's wrong?" He comes straight out and says it, his eyes roaming up and down her body, across her face. "Just tell me. I'll work it out, you know I will."

Connie rolls her eyes. "Because you're the world's best doctor? Why are you back?"

"What's wrong with you?"

They're at an impasse, as they always are, and Connie can feel herself breathing more heavily. She needs to rein the anger in, at least until she's sure the argument's almost over.

"Why. Are. You. Here?" She repeats through gritted teeth.

The mask on Sam's face breaks and, for a split second, he looks concerned in a way she doesn't think he's ever been for her. She blinks, and it's gone. Perhaps she _did_ imagine that.

"You're not well," he replies matter-of-factly. "I thought you were playing a game with Grace, that you were going to do something mad, but I don't think you are. I think, in your twisted way, you're trying to protect her." He's trying to goad her into saying what's wrong with the insult, and she won't fall for it. Sam Strachan might be an enigma to most of the world but, to her, she knows every single one of his tricks.

"I will always protect Grace," Connie vows. "And since when do _you_ do anything for me, Sam? As far as I was concerned, I came at the very bottom of your priority list."

This time, it's Sam's turn to roll his eyes. "We both know that that's utter bollocks, Connie," he replies curtly. "And it's also a conversation for another time. Now, are you going to make me guess, or are you just going to tell me what's wrong?"

"I can handle it on my own," Connie insists, clinging to the flame inside of her, the one burning the fuse of all of her frustrated rants and secret sobs about Sam Strachan and his sudden departure all those months ago. "Now, just take Grace and go. I don't need you."

He doesn't even need to refute that last statement. They both know that it isn't true, deep down at least.

"Significant weight loss, a distinct pallor to the skin," Sam begins. "You're clearly cold – and Noel told me that the heating's been on full since October, which is most unlike you. You're gripping your chest, and you're looking distinctly worried, which leads me to believe that…it's the circulatory system. Probably the heart, which is why you've been so keen to keep me away."

"Don't flatter yourself," Connie retorts. "You're hardly a cardiothoracic specialist."

"And why you've been so keen to spend time with a registrar in emergency medicine, who wouldn't know a cardiac contusion if it hit him in the face," Sam continues, a note of amusement registering in his voice. "Do I need to go on, Connie, or are you just going to tell me? I'm far better than you ever thought I could be."

"I'm sure that's as far from the truth as you could be."

"You're doing a disservice to yourself," Sam continues. "I'll figure it out, and I'll just annoy you all the way. At least if you tell me, you get rid of me faster."

It's a trick. It must be.

Shrugging indifferently, Connie shakes her head. "I don't believe you for a second, Sam."

She's right, because then his tact changes, and he's angry. Angrier than she's seen him in years – as angry as when Grace fell down the stairs, all those years ago.

"Why are you so bloody selfish, Connie?" He shouts. "There's not just you in the world. There's a little girl who has been worried sick because her ignorant, scheming mother has deliberately ignored her for _weeks_. Not as much as a word! I bet it's nothing, I bet this is all an act to try and get Grace here so that you can run away with her and try and hurt me as much as I've hurt you. Well, it isn't going to work, Connie."

Without thinking, Connie blurts out, "I wish that was true. Because it's cancer. And you of all people should know what that's like."

There's a beat of silence as she realises what she's said (and that this was his plan all along; he's always been far too scheming for her), and he processes what she's said.

And the anger drops out of the pair of them.

"Shit," Sam replies. "Cardiac?"

Connie nods.

"I'm really sorry," is his next words, and it rears her anger once again.

"Sorry?" She repeats, scoffing. "You're as far from sorry as you can be."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

A small, sad yet bitter smile slips onto Connie's lips. "This is what you wanted all along, isn't it? A world where you get to have the perfect daughter without me hanging around in the background, a perpetual threat to the little world that you've created. Obviously you didn't expect this – even you can't plot around the human body, Sam – but it's perfect for you. So let's stop pretending that you care, and just go back to how things were."

She tries to walk away, but Sam takes a hold of her left arm. She pretends to fight, but doesn't really mean it because, now that she's finished speaking, she's spent. She certainly wouldn't be able to walk back to the department now, not unaided.

"You're as far from the truth as you could possibly be, Connie," Sam retorts, his voice low. "I've been here before, remember? I know that you need people around you – like you were for me, even though I pushed you away."

"Well, this time you ran away," Connie reminds him, turning so he can't see her face. There are tears forming, and she isn't ready for Sam to see her cry. "Look, you know now. So you can go back to New York, with Grace, and we can pretend that this conversation happened over the phone…"

"Absolutely no chance," Sam says firmly. "Whether you like it or not, Connie, we're a family. And families stick together during things like this."

She doesn't have the heart to remind him that, in their family, he was the one who walked away.

* * *

Let me know your thoughts!


	2. Acceptance

Really sorry for the significant delay in this update - I've been really, really ill, and had observations and stuff, but hopefully it was worth the wait!

* * *

Waking up used to be the easiest part of the day for Connie Beauchamp. She would be awake before her alarm, keen to go to work for another ridiculously long shift – because, when Grace wasn't around, what else did she have?

Now, rousing from sleep only serves to remind her how weak she is, and how much pain a day will bring her. Well, that and the nausea which seems inescapable at the best of times; in the morning, it feels as if she'll do nothing in the day but vomit.

Her eyelids flutter once, twice, and then three times before she manages to keep them open for more than half a second. Rolling onto her side to check her alarm clock hurts more than it used to –but not more than it ought to, if she believes her doctors. Apparently, doing _anything_ will hurt, according to them.

And Sam.

Despite staring at her alarm clock, Connie can't make out the numbers, her attention instead focused on a man who isn't even on this floor. He _is_ in this house, though, and has been for almost two weeks. It had been a non-argument, his moving in with Grace, primarily because she hadn't had the strength to fight him over it. Of all the things she could argue with Sam Strachan about, him being around, surprisingly, wasn't at the top of the list she keeps mentally prepared.

Not that he's close, however. He's in the guest bedroom closest to Grace's, ostentatiously staying in Connie's house to be near to their daughter. The closest contact they have – the closest he comes to seeing her vulnerable in her own home, at least – is when he knocks on her door to make sure that she hasn't fallen asleep again after the alarm. Another thing which, before, would never have happened. Cancer really has taken away everything from her.

Well, he does more than that, she has to admit to herself. He lives with her primarily to make sure that she doesn't die during the night, or have an adverse reaction to treatment with nobody around. It's the side to his living here that she tries to ignore, save for the carefully crafted text messages sent every couple of hours – _okay?_ He asks. _Fine_. She responds. The greatest infringement to her privacy has been allowing him access to the data from her Apple Watch. A monitor of her heartrate, it doesn't exactly provide an exact science – but it's enough to alert him to a serious problem if it suddenly tails off.

Suddenly irrationally angry, Connie pushes any and all thoughts of Sam Strachan out of her mind, instead trying to focus her eyes to read the alarm clock. She doesn't _want_ Sam Strachan around – and she certainly doesn't need him. She's not a little girl who's waited to be saved for years, no matter what his hero complex might think. No, she doesn't want him around, not consciously at least. The only reason he's still here is because he feels guilty about taking Grace away whilst she suffered with a serious tumour. That and the fact that, unfortunately, he had suffered a similar illness not even ten years ago: he understood what she needed more than she did, and knew that she too would pretend to be entirely self-sufficient.

Despite the logic in his involvement, Connie hates it – far more than she probably should. There's just something about it being _Sam Strachan_ , a man who usually does what he can to run as far away from her and the concept of commitment as possible. After all, it hadn't even been six months ago that he had put forward the proposition of tentatively moving towards the three of them being a family unit. And then, not even a fortnight later, he had gone almost without a trace, taking away their daughter, the one thing that Connie held dear. If it was anyone else helping her, she's fairly certain that it would be a much more amicable situation – even though, deep down, she knows that she'd rather have nobody know just how precarious her circumstances truly are.

It's at this exact moment in Connie's thoughts that her phone buzzes on the bed next to her. It, unsurprisingly, is Sam checking in that she's still alive. Which she is – thankfully. Or unfortunately, depending on your perspective.

What she notices with a start, however, is the time. It's a little after nine in the morning – three hours later than she should have gotten up. Grace will have gone to school, and Sam should have…well, who knows what Sam should have done. Where _is_ Sam?

Flustered, Connie forces her body out of bed, ignoring the tell-tale signs that the chemo is affecting her far more than she's willing to admit. She's groggy, can't quite make herself stand up straight, and her gait is severely impaired. She shouldn't get dressed alone; she certainly shouldn't make her way downstairs alone – but she's going to do it anyway, rush job it may be. She _has_ to get to work – because even though her department's on incredible form, even her team will notice that she's completely absent.

It's been a constant point of contention between herself and Sam, her continuing to go to work. The arguments are stacked up against her, Connie's well aware – she used most of them against Sam, back in the day. But now that she's on this side of the table, she's determined to ignore all form of logic and reasoning in favour of perpetuating the myth that there's nothing wrong with her.

She doesn't treat any patients, at least not severely injured ones, that's the deal that they've made so far. She spends ninety five percent of her time in her office, and only jumps onto minors when absolutely necessary. It's likely that Henrik will notice shortly – particularly as she's been putting in a fraction of her usual number of hours recently, and missed almost every Head of Department meeting in the last month due to chemo appointments – and, in all honesty, Connie isn't quite sure she knows what she'll say to him. Will she tell him the truth, and watch as the pity clouds his features and his judgement of Connie Beauchamp forever more? Or will she fob him off with some half-truth, never quite letting him know how ill she really is?

"Connie." She hears her name called, the tone stern as she has come to expect from Samuel Strachan. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that she would be treated like a child in her own home. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Connie ignores Sam as she finishes making her way down the final three steps, doing her best to hide just how much effort it takes to make sure that her feet meet each and every pitstop on the way to the ground floor.

"Connie?" Sam repeats, taking a step closer to the bottom of the stairs. He's standing in the doorway to the living room – _her_ living room, at least formerly, until he started bringing his own medical journals and newspapers and frankly outrageous DVD collection out of storage – and he's dressed casually. Far too casually to be planning on leaving the house today. Somewhere in the ten year interlude between the last time he stayed in this house and now, he hired a stylist who constructed an entire wardrobe of casual and workwear clothes, the most casual of which is a cashmere sweater and lounge trousers. If his presence didn't irritate her so much, she'd almost be enticed.

However, this casualwear is a problem right now. Because Sam Strachan, in this incarnation at least, refuses to leave the house without at least a smart jacket on. Which suggests to her that he doesn't expect to be meeting anyone he knows today – other than Connie, anyway.

Tightening her cardigan around herself, Connie fixes a stern expression on her face as she turns towards Sam.

"I know that it's difficult for you to remember agreements or discussions about potential situations," Connie begins icily, pausing for breath. Thankfully, Sam doesn't interrupt her, which is probably more out of empathy than actually wanting to let her speak. " _However_ , I'm fairly certain that we agreed that you would make sure I didn't sleep in for work. Given it's now nine thirty, you've failed on that front."

Sam snorts slightly, reaching out to gently take a hold of Connie's arm. It's a casual touch which, even six months ago, would have been completely unacceptable to Connie. If there's one thing she dislikes above all else, it's being touched when she doesn't want to be. Now, however, she doesn't want to admit how much she needs his strength – even if she doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Gradually, Connie allows Sam to guide her towards the living room, the highbacked, upright chair nearest the door their target. It's far easier to get up from this than from the far more comfortable sofa, and Connie doesn't plan on staying long; she just needs to get her breath back, that's all. Then she'll be in the car driving to work – or making Sam drive her. She thinks that that'll be the best idea today, though of course she won't admit that she needs him to do it.

"You're clearly exhausted, Connie," Sam says by means of explaining his failure to wake her up. "Nobody will have even noticed your absence. _And_ ," he adds, his tone inflecting a suggestion for Connie to not answer back yet, "I've done most of your outstanding paperwork this morning. Done to the Connie Beauchamp letter, of course, no cutbacks or scrimping on the details."

Connie rolls her eyes. "That's all well and good," she points out, gripping the arm of the chair more tightly than she needs to, "however, I still need to open each file to _sign_ them, Sam."

Sam smirks. "No you don't."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, working for you for three years meant I got…rather acquainted with your signature," Sam explains, alluding to his meaning. "It's probably too simple for such a complex woman as yourself, Connie. I'd really recommend upgrading your signature tactics."

"That is _forgery_ , Sam!" Connie snarls, using the burst of adrenaline which accompanies her shock to help her get to her feed unaided. "I absolutely have to go in now – what if there's a mistake in there? Or if somebody notices the difference in signature?"

Rolling his eyes, Sam continues to loiter by the door, leaning his weight on the frame, his arms folded. If she didn't have to remind herself about how much she hates Sam Strachan on a regular basis, Connie would almost begrudgingly admit his near incomparable good looks.

" _You_ didn't notice on Darwin, Connie," Sam points out, his tone neutral. "I sincerely doubt a rushed medic in an _NHS_ Emergency Department is going to notice if the swing of an a marginally off."

Pursing her lips, Connie shakes her head and takes a step closer to the door. "Let me through, Sam," she says, her tone bitter. In another world, Sam would retort with a comment on her attitude, but in this universe, he doesn't make accusations or snide interpretations; he lets her away with it. And it's almost annoying at times. "If you don't drive me, you know I'll take myself to work."

"I could tell Hanssen – or Charlie," Sam says, his tone matter-of-fact.

Connie stops still. "You wouldn't."

Sam's expression remains neutral, but as he meets her gaze, Connie can sense how serious he is. It's a strange skill he has, to keep calm when telling her _no_ , and it's one that she probably helped him to curate. Their shared experience of cancer probably helps, too, but she's going to ignore that for the minute.

"You're right," Sam pauses, and takes a step aside. If she brushes his side, she could get passed him; though it's probably a psychological move. Sam Strachan knows how to trick her into accepting what's best for her. "I wouldn't tell them about the cancer. But going into work when you look like this –no offence – wouldn't be helping your cause of keeping it secret."

He knows that she knows he's right, and it's infuriating. They've always had an imperfect equilibrium, one which is normally upended by her superior skill and manoeuvres, but now, the power is all on his side. It's a situation she's never been in before – because even with Michael Beauchamp, she retained enough of her wits to know how to use his insatiable need for power against him. Yet now, she's weak, almost powerless, and alone.

Well, that's not true. No matter how much she doesn't want to admit it – or even acknowledge the fact – she isn't alone. Sam Strachan is here, with her, and that's a damn sight more than she's had for the last six months.

"Fine," she concedes defeat, meeting Sam's gaze. There's a split second of relief in his eyes – he truly thought he'd lost this discussion, which surprises her slightly – but it's gone and replaced with the careful neutrality which guards his expression whenever he knows she's watching him. When he doesn't know, however, it's a different story. "I won't go in. But I'm certainly not going back to bed or sitting around doing nothing. I'm checking the paperwork – _and_ you're going to be reminded of every single reason why forging my signature is dangerous. Not just for you, but for the patients."

The corners of Sam's lips lift, and he takes a step away from the door towards her. In a different life, this would mean a different thing than it does; it would mean what Connie's heart _wants_ it to mean, rather than just being a very literal support to help her keep her balance. But this life is determined to keep Connie and Sam apart, so there's no point even acknowledging the _what if_ or _might have been_.

Well, maybe she will, when he's gone to bed and she's lying in her own bed, thinking about the future – or her lack of it. But nights are intended for pipedreams, and the days are for cold, harsh reality.

* * *

~x~

She's exhausted all the time, especially after chemo, but she can't sleep most nights. She gets off to sleep without a problem, sucked into a dreamless sleep, but by two in the morning she's wide awake again. Part of it's her lack of routine – working shifts for her entire life has left her body peculiar, needing to be awake and alert at a moment's notice – and part of it is the fact that she doesn't _want_ to sleep.

If this is to be her final few weeks on this planet as Connie Beauchamp, then she doesn't want to go down passive, sleeping to pass the time. She isn't in any pain, not really. If she's going down, she's going to go down fighting.

So she gets up most nights and wanders around the downstairs of her home, running her hands over the nicknacks she's gathered – and kept – over the years. Her various phases and need to declutter has led to a lot of momentos disappearing and simply becoming memories, but at least she's managed to stop herself purging the folders and folders of photos.

With a glass of water in one hand, photo in another, she whiles away the small hours perusing through the photos, going from her childhood to the present at random. Some nights she spends the entire time looking at photos of Grace's first year; other nights, she flits from her teenage years to her promotion to Consultant, wondering wistfully if she would have changed any of it. Other nights still, she looks at the photos of the fifteen years she spent with Michael, her attention drawn by the enraptured expression on her wedding day, all those years ago.

Most nights, Sam joins her. He's remarkably sensitive to the noise of her walking down the stairs, and usually joins her after a few minutes, when it becomes clear that she's staying downstairs.

Some nights they sit in silence, Sam not probing into the material remains of the life of the woman she was before she met him, simply sitting there until she hands him a photo of Grace or a moment in her life he'll recognise.

Other nights, they talk. They talk about anything that comes to mind, from Grace's childhood, to the news about the development of replacement stem stents in the US, to the absolute rubbish that they ended up watching on the television the night before.

The only thing they never talk about is them – what their relationship is, what it has been, what it could be, and why he ran away from it all.

"Do you ever worry about dying?" Connie asks him randomly on this miserable Tuesday morning, the wind driving the rain into the windows. It's triple glazed, and yet she still needs two throws and the heating on.

Sam smiles wistfully from across the sofa, resting his head against his right hand. There's a hint of stubble on his jawline, and Connie thinks that it makes him look more attractive than ever.

She shakes her head to remove the thought from it, and looks down at the rim of her glass, hoping desperately that the heat rising to her cheeks isn't obvious.

"Hey," Sam says gently, touching her arm. He clearly thinks that she's looked away out of sadness, rather than anything else, and she decides not to bother correcting him. "Of course I do. And I did before, you know. I wrote a will and everything – that definitely wasn't on the top of my to do list for 2009, you know, with the playboy thing and all that. And I still do now." He takes a deep breath, and Connie looks up at him again; he's wistful, wistful in a way she doesn't think she's seen from him. "I think it's normal to be scared of your own mortality, you know? Especially as doctors…we see so much death, to not think about it would be strange."

Connie purses her lips, taking a sip of water before she continues. "Do you think that you think about it more because of what happened?"

"Absolutely," Sam confirms. "After all, I'm probably completely different because of what happened."

She can't stop herself from snorting.

"Hey, what does that mean?" Sam asks, suddenly affronted – but Connie can't tell if he's playing the role or not. He's done that quite a lot recently, trying to draw some form of emotional connection out of her.

Most of the time, she resists his efforts. Tonight, she doesn't bother.

"I mean, you're still almost exactly the same sort of person you were before," Connie protests, offering a weak smile. "Womanising one woman one minute, flashing someone else a smile the next. An excellent practitioner of medicine – though that always comes second to one thing or another. Fiercely loyal to your own ideas of right and wrong – hey, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying that…you've changed less than you might think you have."

"Yeah, you're right," Sam admits. "But…I know who I was before. I don't think…I doubt I would have gone to America in the first place if I hadn't. I'd have stayed here, and challenged you in Holby. It would have been World War Three, both for Darwin and for Grace. And it would have probably destroyed us both. So I think I changed – just maybe not in the ways that you might see." His voice is soft, and it's once again offering Connie a different side to Sam Strachan than she usually sees.

It's too gentle, however, and Connie doesn't want to start down a road which will only end in her heartache again, so she deliberately makes her voice jovial as she says, "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, Sam. I can assure you, no matter _who_ you were, there's no way you would have destroyed me – or taken my department." She doesn't mention Grace, however, because she knows that a full-strength, determined Sam Strachan could have taken her daughter far more easily than she's willing to admit.

"Fair enough," Sam, too, concedes.

The moment's awkward, and the conversation will probably end up going down a road that she doesn't want to pursue, so Connie forces herself to her feet, and fakes a yawn. "Right, I'm off back to bed," she says, "goodnight."

"Goodnight."

As she lies there, twenty minutes later and more awake than before, Connie realises that Sam Strachan knows that she lied and he could barge through the door any moment.

Thankfully, he doesn't.

* * *

~x~

Sam accompanies her to her chemotherapy appointments, which appeases the busybody nurse who normally gets involved to ask about her lack of family.

They sit in silence for the most part, except for when they exchange opinions on the latest cardiac surgery advances, debating their practicality in a busy NHS theatre.

He always offers to get her a coffee when she sends him away for a few minutes every week, keen to gather her thoughts as she feels the toxic chemical seeping into her bloodstream. She always declines.

Sometimes, he comes out with something profound, however. Just as he does today, in the otherwise empty chemotherapy suite. There are some benefits to private healthcare, and this is one of them.

"I just," Sam begins, and Connie immediately tenses. When Sam Strachan is less than perfectly eloquent in a conversation, it means it's a difficult one. And a difficult one for him is likely to be a difficult one for her, too. "I was going to come back, you know. Before."

"It doesn't matter," Connie mumbles, because she really doesn't want to have this conversation not now, not ever. He can say what he wants now, because he's here, but the only reason he came back is because she has cancer and he feels bad. That's the crux of the matter. "Really. Can we not talk about this now?"

The corner of Sam's lips quirk. "There's no one else in the room to overhear anything," he points out, logic on his side for once. "And you literally don't have to say anything."

"Still," she protests.

"I was going to come back," he presses, a sense of urgency in his voice as it becomes clear he desperately needs her to believe him. "I always do, don't I?"

"Barely," she whispers. "When you need something." Her words are vicious, but, she reflects, honest.

And he knows that.

"True," he concedes. "But I come back to _you_ when I could go anywhere else."

"And the first time, it took you eight years," Connie retorts. "That time, it was purely accidental, and you did everything you could to get out of my department as soon as possible."

Sam snorts, and as she looks at him, Connie can see his eyes focused on the memory of the event – his memory, though, not hers. "I tried everything to get her out of there," he confirms, "because I knew that the longer she stayed, the longer I'd be around you. And I wasn't ready to come back, to be reminded of you and what could be."

Her heart flutters, and it's reflected on the machine, embarrassingly. To try and hide the reason for the increase in her heartrate, Connie twists slightly, and feigns feeling discomfort in her arm.

Sam, unfortunately, doesn't appear to fall for it.

"What happened to her, anyway?" Connie asks, curiosity piqued. She didn't want to have this conversation, so she'll be damned if she doesn't ask the questions which make Sam uncomfortable. "Emma. Grace liked her, you appeared to…and yet the next time Grace spoke to you, it was if she had never existed."

Shifting uncomfortably, Sam looks away and towards the chemotherapy machine. It takes more than a minute for him to reply, but she's already decided he isn't getting away with giving her a non-answer.

"She was great," he admits, "until I came back here."

"And what does that have to do with anything?" Connie asks, exasperated. She can sort of understand what he's hinting at but, vindictively, she wants him to say it. He isn't getting away with giving her this sort of hope again – at least not by avoiding the actual words. Her breathing is getting more rapid, but she can't tell if it's the chemo, or Sam.

(It's definitely Sam, but she isn't going to let him build her quashed hopes and dreams up from the ashes again, at least without something definitive.)

"It's you, Connie," Sam says slowly, without meeting her gaze. "It's always been you."

This causes an extremely noticeable peak in her heartrate machine, but it isn't for the emotion that Connie was expecting to feel.

"Then why," she begins with gritted teeth, the forceful nature of her anger surprising even her. "Did you leave? Why did you leave back then? And then why did you leave in August?"

Sam looks back, meeting her eyes, and his mouth opens but no words come out. "I…I…I…"

"You ran away because you were scared of commitment and the idea that you might have to _change_ even remotely for anything to have even a remote chance of success," Connie spits out, locking eyes with Sam and wishing that she could fire daggers from her eyes. "Because it's all well and good thinking you want something when you're three thousand miles away, but when you remember that you have to modify the least acceptable parts of your personality, you freeze. And then, once you've unfrozen, you run so that you don't have to deal with the feelings _or_ your attitude." She takes a deep breath, but she's run out of words – or the strength to continue.

She's surprised that his expression softens, and there appears to almost be a chance that he's going to _cry_ , but she doesn't regret a single word. If he hadn't run, none of this would have happened. Well, she would have had the cancer still…but she wouldn't have had to go through it alone.

"You're right," Sam replies.

"I know I am," Connie interrupts curtly. She didn't need for him to argue or to confirm a point that she's spent three months (and more) thinking about. "Now I've got ten minutes left, so go and get the car so that we can get straight off and pick Grace up from school."

* * *

~x~

She deliberately goes to bed straight after dinner that evening, feigning 'not feeling well from work' to a daughter who still doesn't know her mother has cancer, so that she doesn't have to speak to Sam. He's told her everything she wants to hear and everything she never wanted to know for definite in an attempt to ignore the convoluted nature of their relationship.

Thankfully, she drops straight off to sleep, but the sleep is filled with images of his face throughout their relationship. Her brain reminds her of the positives they've had over the years, as well as the negatives, reminding her that, when they chose to work at something, they generally improved. Look at their relationship with Grace, after all.

The thing that always let them down was that neither of them were willing to make the changes needed for a Connie and Sam story to last more than the first chapter.

* * *

~x~

She can't avoid him the next day.

"Look, Connie," Sam begins, but she cuts him off. She prepared what she was going to say in advance, and it's easier if she can say it in one go rather than trying to have to amend it to whatever he says first.

"Sam," she says simply, her voice far gentler than yesterday. "It doesn't matter. Yes, things could have potentially happened – but note _could_. Things didn't change – I didn't change and you didn't – and we both said and did things that would make it incredibly difficult for anything to work."

"But…"

"And anyway, nothing can happen," Connie presses on, her tone carefully neutral as she looks away so she doesn't have to see Sam's expression. "Because you can't change, Sam. It isn't your fault, and I'm not blaming you. But as soon as I'm better – if not before – you'll go back to America, probably with Grace, and the old cycle will resume."

"But…"

"There are no buts, Sam," Connie replies gently, as she forces herself to her feet. It's always more difficult the day after chemo, and she's glad that she managed it without his help. She probably wouldn't be able to finish her mini speech if she could feel his skin on hers; it affects her far more than it should. A small smile slips onto her lips as she concludes, "I had started to change – at the very least, I was open to the idea of reprioritising, which was a miracle. But you weren't. I suppose it was unfair, to change the rules so late on in this _very_ long game. So let's just…let's just leave things as they are, shall we?"

She walks out, leaving a dumbstruck Sam Strachan sitting in her kitchen, not to move for another three hours.

* * *

~x~

He isn't sure what's most shocking: that Connie Beauchamp was willing to change for _him_ , or that he didn't realise it sooner.

Well, he thinks, that's a lie. He had recognised it at the outset – that's what caused him to run. She's slightly wrong in her analysis of him, but that she's so close to the truth without being near to him shows just how well Connie knows him. He saw that she was open to the idea of them becoming a family, and he panicked; he didn't think that he could do it, no matter what he said.

But that doesn't matter now, because he has to find a way to show her that, finally, he wants to try and make the change. It might be too late, as she said, but he doesn't think so. As long as you're always willing to change, a relationship can start at any point in life.

"Hey, Dad," Grace says with a smile as she slides into the front seat. "School was _great_ today! Fran and Taz were, like, so excited to see me – they haven't been in for a couple of weeks because they've been sick. But it was so great to see them again!"

A small, rueful smile appears on Sam's face. He had convinced himself that the friends she made during her year in America were the ones that she was closest to. He had forgotten about the ones she had had before – and during – both periods of time spent in New York.

"That's great, sweetheart," Sam replies, turning the ignition of the car to get the engine to start. "Look, Gracie, I had a question for you…"

"Yeah?" Grace asks, distracted. "If it's about dinner, I vote pizza. I know Mum won't like it and she'll have her weird veg, but we can, right? It won't hurt her if _we_ eat something else?"

"No," Sam admits. Salty pizza can't hurt Connie by diffusion, anyway. "But it isn't about dinner."

"Okay?"

"How…how would you feel about a permanent return to England?"

There's a period of silence, and Sam takes his eyes off the road momentarily to see a perplexed expression on his daughter's face.

"Is this because Mum's so ill?" Grace asks. "I mean, you still haven't told me _why_ she's ill. Or how she's ill."

"It isn't because of that, sweetheart," Sam rushes in to confirm. "It's up to you, I don't mind if we live in England or in America. But, if you want to come back, we can. Permanently, this time."

"Really?" Grace asks, a smile spreading across her face. "I mean, America's _great_ , but…it isn't home. Was this Mum's surprise?"

Sam smiles. "No, sweetheart. Your Mum doesn't know yet – I didn't want to get her hopes up if you wanted to go back when she's better."

"Does this mean that you're wanting to stay for a _different_ reason?" Grace asks, her tone suddenly curious. "A _romance_ reason?"

Sam laughs. "I want to stay to make you and your mother happy, sweetheart. That's all."

Grace's lack of response tells him everything he needs to know.

* * *

~x~

The first Connie hears of the decision for Grace and Sam to stay in England – and, more specifically, in Holby – is after dinner on the same day she tells Sam that they don't have a future.

"So, basically, Dad asked me where I'd rather live, and I said here, _obviously_!" Grace squeals, jumping up and down. "Are you happy?"

Connie smiles, and claps her hands. She can't bring herself to stand up; her head hurts, and she hasn't felt this dizzy in weeks. The chemo's affecting her more than she thought – it's unlikely she'll make it into work tomorrow, to have the meeting Henrik wanted. But it isn't the reaction Grace wanted, and she knows her daughter will be suspicious.

"I am absolutely over the moon, sweetheart," Connie replies, a grin spreading across her lips. "Come and give me a hug – careful though, Mummy's still ill."

"What's wrong?" Grace asks. "I mean, we're staying. You might as well tell me."

Connie freezes with fear as she wraps her arms around her daughter, and she frantically seeks Sam's gaze to make eye contact with him. For once, she actively wants him to see the fear in her eyes.

"It's a circulatory thing, Gracie," Sam replies, keeping his gaze on Connie the entire time. "Nothing to worry about. Just means that your Mum shouldn't be alone."

"Are you _really_ happy that we're staying?" Grace murmurs into her mother's ear.

"Nothing could make me happier," Connie whispers. "I love you more than anything else in the world."

She isn't sure if it's an accident or a deliberate decision, but she keeps eye contact with Sam as she speaks, and she can see the response in his eyes. _I love you_.

* * *

~x~

They meet at two in the morning, by some sort of unspoken agreement, in the living room of her third home in Holby. The photos are already spread around her in a circle as she sits on the floor, crosslegged and focused on trying to find the photo she's looking for.

"You do take an exceptionally large number of photos," Sam comments with a smile as he drops to his knees, sitting down directly in front of Connie.

"Yeah, lots of things happen, got to remember them," she murmurs, barely looking up from the photos in her hand to acknowledge his presence. "Take a look in that box, will you?"

"What am I looking for?" Sam asks.

"You'll know it when you see it."

She recognises that it's not exactly the most useful instruction, but, to his great credit, he doesn't argue, simply opens the box and pulls out a handful of photos. They're both searching through the boxes of Grace's early years, looking for the photo which will explain everything.

Ten minutes later, she finds it.

It's the one photo that she's never been able to display, for fear of causing her heart to gain a perpetual ache. A photo from when Grace was six months old, both of her parents by her side, smiles on their faces. Sam's arm gently around Connie, they were a family – at least for the photo.

"Look," Connie says gently, her voice barely audible. "I've got it, Sam."

She shows him it, and watches as his eyes light up with the same expression he has when he's looking at her without realising she can see.

"A good memory," he declares.

"Yes," she agrees. "But…it doesn't have to be the only memory."

His brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

Shrugging slightly, Connie sets the rest of the photos in her hand down and reaches out for his empty left hand. "I mean…you're trying. I'm trying. It might not go anywhere after I'm better…but what's the worst that could happen?"

"The worst is that we could end up getting married," Sam suggests. "Certainly not the worst is that you _choose_ to let me live with you."

"I opened myself up to those possibilities months ago," Connie retorts, though her voice stays gentle. "Have you?"

"This isn't a game to me," Sam says firmly, maintaining eye contact. "We'll have bad days, and we'll have even worse days – you can't not, when we're as stubborn as we are. But we'll have good days, and great days, and we'll make sure we get through those worse days."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, Connie Beauchamp, that I've stopped running away from you."

She can't really move, so she's grateful that Sam reaches across and gently presses his lips to hers. It doesn't last long, simply because she can't really do without the oxygen that a kiss denies her, but it's sweet, and vastly different to most of the other kisses that they've shared.

There are a thousand barriers in their way, largely the ones that they themselves have constructed to stop this happening, but Connie knows that they can knock them down. Provided they don't implode along the way.

* * *

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review to let me know your thoughts, and if you have any suggestions about what I can write next, please leave that in the reviewbox also! If you're on tumblr, also feel free to message me on conniebaechamp


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